Let’s face it, many people do judge a book by its cover. And when that cover is your product image, you need to do everything you can to truly make it shine. Here are five best practices you should be following no matter what type of product you’re selling:

We're very hard working on version 1.9.0 for you right now, but there were some annoying little things that we thought would be good to get fixed for you right away.  So we put on our aprons and got to work.  The focus of this release was quite simple: minor enhancements to address issues with PayPal and order/inventory management.  We hope you like these updates.  If you're using our inventory features, we're certain that you will.

When you’re running your store, there are so many moving parts. No matter how long you’ve been doing it, it can always feel a bit overwhelming. What are sales today? Are they good? What makes those sales spike up or down? Compared to what? How do I do something about that? How can I duplicate the success from Product A to Product B? They’re almost the same thing. Uh oh, now the CEO is asking about it…

Our team is heads-down, working hard on our next release right now.  We always have great things planned - and you can definitely look forward to some "sexy" new features to be released in the near future.  In the meantime though, we know that you need to get some of those pesky bugs squashed.  We know how you feel.  This release will fix most of the outstanding issues that we know about.  

We didn't think this kind of proposal was earth-shattering, but the more we speak to our clients, the more we find that it IS earth-shattering to them.  I've personally said this before, that software is not about code, it's about people.  You see evidence of this all around you.  Just think about how you and others around you use Twitter, Facebook, and Google.  They've not only built businesses with customers, but they built thriving communities filled with brand advocates by focusing on the people.

How this is done is different for every business, and we've found that the secret of our success now and in the future is centered around you.  Here's how...

Our team is heads-down, working hard on our next release right now.  We always have great things planned - and you can definitely look forward to some "sexy" new features to be released in the near future.  In the meantime though, we know that you need to get some of those pesky bugs squashed.  We know how you feel.  This release will fix most of the outstanding issues that we know about.  

We simply can't fit everything we want into a single release.  Sometimes we have to remember that we're simply humans - just like you. It was a very short time span between 1.8.0 and today's 1.8.1 release because we already were hard at work on a few updates that just had to wait.  We think you'll like them.  Overall, 1.8.1 is a minor upgrade, but it packs a powerful performance and stability punch, along with some multi-lingual goodness for our friends overseas.

E-Commerce is still a very new thing when you think about it.  It may feel like it's been around forever, but if e-commerce were a child, we'd be just now teaching it how to be a gentleman or a lady, while at the same time preparing it to go to college.  E-Commerce isn't in it's infancy, but rather in it's adolescence.  We replaced training wheels for a bus pass only a couple of years ago.

Every year we do the same thing on this day.  We prepare for a fun night!  In addition, we all make our promises to ourselves to make one or many changes to improve ourselves.  It's becoming something of a joke among ourselves, but our annual resolutions often lead to great things, and can even inspire others to do the same.  We decided to take the lead on this and launch a release that will hopefully inspire you too!

Every year, it’s the same wonderful pattern of excitement and stress that we love to hate. Wedecorate our houses, offices, and trees. We go to company holiday parties. We make plans to see (or not see) family and friends. We decide what our budgets are and buy presents. Every year, one of these seemsto be shifting dramatically. Next year, will you be ready?

How do you create interest and trust in a product that someone can only see a picture of? For e-commerce retailers, customer reviews on their company website or social media pages has become a big part of answering this question.

As the e-commerce landscape continues to change and evolve, one of the biggest changes in recent year has been the explosion of online reviews.

With the Holiday season on our doorstep, online merchants are faced with a big decision this season: How can I increase revenue and customer loyalty? However, there is no need to panic.

The past few weeks have been a blur for us here at HotcakesCommerce for quite a few reasons… We were highly involved at DNNCon Palm Beach2014. It’s always great to participate with the DNNcommunity and this time we took it to a whole new level.

We didn't spend as much time whipping up this batch of Hotcakes as we have most of this year.  In fact, this is probably the shortest period of time between releases since January or maybe even 2013.  That doesn't mean that we didn't include more delicious features to help you, your clients, and your/their customers.  Our team has been hard at work on the features below, and more that have yet to be announced.

We will have plenty more details about how we will be at 

We have so many yummy updates that you are sure to enjoy. The highlights alone are enough to make thisbatch enough to satisfy the sweet tooth of nearly any e-commerce site.

Yes, for our European customers, we understand that footballin America primarily consists of contact of a ball with a player’s hands, but that’s our national past time. To befair, American football did begin with foot contact. We can blame Harvard for today’s hand-based(or Rugby) set of rules. We love futbolas well, but it’s still not quite as popular yet.

Nearly everyone within and outside of the e-commerce industry can pretty much outline all of the basic details of features that a B2C (business to customer) store should have. We use these kinds of online retail stores on a daily basis in our personal lives. A B2B (business to business) store can often have some different requirements, based upon a large number of factors.

These days, faster is just not fast enough. No matter the subject matter, we want it faster, cheaper, and easier than last time. This ranges from food orders, all the way to enterprise software purchases. Start-ups like Eat Club, FixIt, and Uber are all great examples of that. But what about you? What about the eager to please company that simply wants to launch their next great e-commerce website?

Do you love the Microsoft stack?  Perhaps you just have to work on it because your boss told you too.  It's either that, or you really want to work with a solution that allows you to work with C#, MVC, Razor and maybe even good ol' fashioned web forms. 

It was always our desire to reach across from our own borders to help enterprising people in other countries as they build their businesses to branch into successful online stores. A few months ago, we began to find out that we didn't need to do the reaching. The word about Hotcakes Commerce had already gone global. We have sites nearing launch in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands!

As we have seen over the past few years, entrepreneurs are the new rockstars.